All posts tagged Moutai

With its strong flavor and fiery aftertaste, Kweichow Moutai isn’t for everyone. With prices for vintage bottles of the liquor spiraling upwards, it’s now for even fewer people.

On Sunday, at an auction hosted by Chinese auction house Beijing Googut Auction Co., 540 milliliter bottles of Moutai produced in the 1980s sold for between 60,000 yuan ($9,700) and 70,000 yuan ($11,300). Read More »

If there’s one bellwether to gauge the health of the luxury sector in China, it’d be Kweichow Moutai Co. Ltd, makers of a high-end liquor that packs a punch and is the preferred drink at official and business banquets.

The company said its 2013 profit rose by 13.7% when it announced its year-end results late Monday. That figure beat analyst estimates, but it’s also far below the 52% growth it posted in 2012. Read More »

The Chinese government’s austerity campaign is hitting the country’s largest baijiu producer by market capitalization hard.

Kweichow Moutai Co.’s shares plunged by the 10% daily limit in Shanghai on Monday morning, after the company reported its slowest half-year gain since 2001. The maker of moutai, a high-end baijiu, or white liquor, said Friday its first-half net profit rose 3.6%. Read More »

As China’s central government takes aim at certain luxury items known to play a role in bribery, the desires of the country’s elite appear to be changing in tandem.

Goodbye pricey spirits, hello tech toys.

Apple Inc., maker of the iPad and iPhone has shot up to the second most-preferred brand among wealthy Chinese men and fifth most-preferred brand among wealthy Chinese women in a ranking of preferred gifts compiled by Shanghai-based wealth research firm Hurun Research Institute. The ranking was based on a survey of 551 Chinese millionaires with personal wealth of at least $1.6 million. Read More »

Chinese “national liquor” brand Kweichow Moutai has gone out of its way to defend itself amid fears much of China’s supply of high-end baijiu has been contaminated with a toxic substance — an unusual move for a Chinese company faced with a product safety scandal.

Whether the rare public relations effort had the desired effect is another question. Read More »

Times may be tough in China but not everyone shares the pain: Kweichow Moutai, the maker of the fiery liquor that looks harmless but has the kick of jet fuel, is finding plenty of reason to celebrate amid the gloom.

The company, which comes close to being a “national champion” and says that its form of baijiu (or “white alcohol”) is one of the world’s three most famous liquors, announced that it is raising the prices of some of its beverages by 20-30%. That launched the shares of the company’s stock nearly 6% on the Shanghai stock exchange on Tuesday.

The subject of money is once again drawing attention to Wenzhou, the east-coast city famous for entrepreneurship and creative finance. But this time, the focus is squarely on local officials’ restaurant bills.

Wenzhou officials have limited official reception spending to 60 yuan (about $9.40) per meal per person, according to an announcement published by the local government office and the city’s disciplinary commission. The new measure also requires all local government offices to eschew lunch-time drinking, luxurious banquets, overspending in meals and throwing each other lavish receptions. Read More »

China’s state-owned enterprises are losing their luster on the global stage.

Bloomberg

The brand equity of eight of China’s most renowned state-owned companies, such as Bank of China and China Mobile, has fallen 9% in the last year, according brand consultancy firm Millward Brown’s new report evaluating the world’s top 100 brands.

Chinese state firms’ financial performance and reputations have dropped in the past year as consumers have lost trust in their service, said Doreen Wang, a Beijing-based account director at Millward Brown. Read More »

The makers of Moutai, China’s brutally powerful and notoriously expensive national liquor, are attempting to lift their spirits abroad as fears about the brand’s future mount at home.

China Kweichow Moutai Distillery Co., one of the world’s largest listed distillers by market cap, proudly announced at a press conference on Tuesday that its Small Batch Blend baijiu had won gold in this year’s World Spirits Competition, beating out around 70 producers from more than 30 other countries in the recent annual blind taste testing competition.

“The rise of Moutai represents the rise of China,” Kweicho Moutai general manager Liu Zili proclaimed, adding that he and executives are working with partners to expand the distribution and the brand worldwide.

But few within China seem focused on whether the brand will expand internationally. Instead, all eyes are on the home front, where many critics question whether the rise of Moutai represents the rise of China’s corruption. Read More »

Expert Insight

New rules on labor negotiations in southern China offer a potential solution to the country's growing problem with labor unrest while at the same time illustrating the difficulty the Communist Party faces in effectively addressing workers’ grievances.

For much of the last half-century, changing China through economic reform seemed to make far better sense than transforming the country through political revolution. Xi Jinping is trying to flip that on its head.

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